8-Day Workshop | Tenerife | February 3-11, 2018 | €2,700

In a beautiful hillside villa among palm trees in a small town in Tenerife, you can: Enjoy warm sunshine in February. Connect in a deep way with others. Talk about the things that are shameful or embarrassing or difficult for you to talk about. Experience compassion. Learn to express whatever arises in you in the moment: excitement, fear, anger, attraction, appreciation, embarrassment, happiness. Experience the sensations in your body as they arise. Learn to be in the here and now.

ARE YOU READY TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE?

Learn to:* Let go of shame, fear and attachment to approval* Be completely and compassionately honest* Get out of your comfort zone* Share with others – laugh out loud, cry and yell, smile and dance* Ask for everything you want; expand your ability to give & receive* Heal relationships with full body forgiveness

9 days and 8 nights (7 full days & 2 half days)

The large villa that we’ll occupy has beautiful views, comfortable rooms, an outdoor swimming pool, a large lawn-covered garden, a covered patio and a rooftop terrace. In other words, everything you need in terms of comfort for a successful 9-day change-your-life-for-the-better workshop! During the afternoon breaks, you can enjoy the pool, wander on the slopes of the mountain, stroll to the nearby village or even head down to the beach.

The lead trainer for the workshop will be Radical Honesty Trainer Tuulia Syvänen. She will be supported by Radical Honesty Trainer Pete Jordan. We will also have a cook preparing our meals and another staff member helping with organizational matters.

Brad Blanton—Radical Honesty founder—says this about the 9-day workshop:

“The 9-Day workshop is an experiential course in living out loud, increasing your capacity for intimacy and creativity, and living your life on purpose, instead of residing in the jail of your mind and reacting to life’s circumstances while believing you’re in control. The workshop is similar to the 8-Day workshops we’ve been hosting for years. We decided to go to for nine days, to allow for more time for more personal hot seat work.

“In our workshops, we get together to make some agreements about what they will do together for the next nine days. One of the most important agreements is that they will tell the truth to each other completely for the next nine days. If that was all that occurred, and there were no other agenda whatsoever, the course would be powerful because the power of that agreement alone is incredible.”

What is the program?

We will begin each day with yoga and meditation, followed by breakfast and a morning session of teaching, group conversations and paired exercises. We will then have a healthy lunch and an afternoon break. After the break, we will continue working with “hot seat” work, teaching, meditation, movement or dancing, and more paired and small group exercises. At around 19:00 or 20:00, we’ll eat dinner.

After dinner, one by one, each person will spend one hour telling the whole story of his or her life. Before the workshop is over, every participant will hear everyone else’s life story and will tell their own. Each person will also receive a copy of the video recording of them telling their story to use later to start conversations with parents, ex-spouses, siblings, lovers and friends with whom they have unfinished business in life.

On about the fifth day, we’ll all get naked. One at a time we’ll stand in front of the group and talk about what we like and don’t like about our body. We’ll also tell our sexual histories: when we first discovered we were a sexual being, when we first masturbated, whether we prefer doing it with men or women or vegetables or minerals, how many partners of each gender we’ve had sex with, our best and worst sexual experiences and so on. We will often get embarrassed, but with good coaching and complete sharing of the truth and support from the group we will face our shame/fears/taboos and get over them.

People often presume this is a sexy experience. So far, it has never been very sexy at all. Mostly it’s about embarrassment and shame and suffering more than pleasure, and about how avoidance of all those aspects often controls our lives. (Those who were the most scared of this exercise, generally, are the ones who benefit the most from it!)

Then we’ll review our videos together. Each person will take a turn sitting next to the screen and observing his/her video and receiving feedback about it. The process of watching oneself on television, naked, while talking about his/her sex life can be a more confrontational process for some people than the original experience of standing naked before the group. Again, the willingness to face the experience and live through it provides a decrease in the intensity of the sensations related to shame and a change in perspective on their own life in the direction of compassion for themselves as well as others. And then, most likely, we’ll appreciate ourselves and others for doing this work and live more fulfilling lives with less shame about ourselves.

Just as with the life story video, each person will receive a copy of their naked work video to share with others in his or her life (and the original files of those recordings will be deleted).

As you can imagine, by the fifth or sixth day, people will get to know each other pretty well. What happens—and it happens over and over again with very diverse groups of people—is the same every time. Everyone falls in love with everyone else. Now, isn’t that a hell of a thing? Imagine all that time wasted “putting on airs” in hopes that someone would love us for our act, when all we needed to do was drop the act and tell the truth!

This is what some folks say about trainer, Tuulia:

“If you do a workshop with Tuulia, it’ll change your life.”–Dr. Brad Blanton, the founder of Radical Honesty“I went to my first Radical Honesty workshop with Tuulia in October 2015. I can honestly say it impacted my life tremendously. During the workshop, I saw my patterns and learned a lot from honest feedback of others. It gave me a mirror to see myself through the eyes of others, something that I had never experienced before. Literally eye opening! Within a year I went from totally breakdown crying all day long to a radiant, super confident, happy woman who knows what she wants and how to make it happen. I haven’t felt better in 15 years and my energy levels and stamina are still growing every day.”–Marja“I learned how to express my anger and hear other people’s anger for the first time in my life. The self-image I had created about me being a shy and introverted guy got a lot cracks. I experienced how just being myself is the best way to connect to people. I felt relief and happiness in a way I had not experienced before. Throughout the entire retreat, I felt very safe and guided by Tuulia’s compassion and wisdom."–Jakob

The Town of Tenerife (Canary Islands)

During our stay, the weather is expected to be very pleasant with temperatures ranging between 15 and 23 degrees. If you choose to stay longer in Tenerife, you’ll have a variety of options for things to do. A major attraction is the nearby Teide National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and its 17-km-wide volcanic crater. The Mount Teide volcano rises 3,718 meters above sea level and a cable car lifts visitors 1,200 meters to a spot that affords amazing views. There are many hiking possibilities in Teide as well as along the island’s coastline. You can also visit tropical gardens, go on a whale and dolphin watching tours, view interesting architecture, visit beautiful historic towns and, of course, play in the surf and lay on the beach.

FAQs

When does the workshop begin and end?The workshop will begin at around 17:00 on Saturday 3 February and finish at around 12:00 noon on Sunday 11 February.

Can I stay a little longer?Yes! If you want to arrive a day early (checking in at 18:00 on 2 February) or depart a day later (checking out at 10:30 on 12 February), you can book those additional nights at the villa for an additional €50 per night. (On those nights, you’ll be on your own for food, though a small supermarket and several restaurants are within easy walking distance.)

Who can participate?Anyone! No prior experience with Radical Honesty is required. You will, though, have to agree to the workshop’s commitments: to keep confidentiality, to tell the truth, to support others in telling the truth, to be on time and present, to allow the trainer to coach you and to ask for what you want. We also recommend you read Dr. Brad Blanton’s books Radical Honesty and/or Practising Radical Honesty before the workshop.

How does one register?The group is limited to 16 participants. We expect this workshop to fill up fast (as have the other 8/9-day workshops we’ve organized). To sign up or to receive more information, please write to info@tuuliasyvanen.com.

How does one get there?You can fly to either of Tenerife’s airports—Tenerife South or Tenerife North—though we recommend flying into Tenerife South since it’s located much closer to the villa.

How much does this cost?The early bird price is €2,450 (when the fee is fully paid by 30 September 2017); thereafter the regular price is €2,700. (To secure your spot at the early bird price, you can pay a deposit of €500 now and the balance by 30 September.)

This fee covers the 8/9-day workshop, daily healthy vegetarian/vegan meals, shared accommodation, the teaching and follow up after the workshop. (In cases of financial hardship, we are willing to give a longer payment schedules. Please get in touch with us and we’ll work out a solution together.)